UCSD Physics 12

Energy Footprint
A Case Study
UCSD Physics 12

Electricity meter
• Electricity meters read in kWh (kilowatt-hour)
– this is a unit of energy: power times time
– 1 kWh is 1,000 W over 1 hr = 3,600 seconds
• or 1 W over 1000 hours, or 100 W over 10 hours
– thus 1 kWh = 3,600,000 J (= 860 kcal)
• My electricity bill indicates a cost of $0.13 per
kWh
– try getting 860 kcal of food for $0.13
– lesson: eat your electricity—it’s cheap!
– tastes bad, though: burnt tongue smell/taste

Spring 2013 2
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Measuring your electricity consumption

• All houses/apartments have
energy meters to monitor
electricity usage
– this is what the bill is based on
• Dials accumulate KWh of usage
• Disk turns at rate proportional to
power consumption
– Kh value is the number of Watt-
hours per turn (1 Wh = 3600 J)
• Example: one turn in 10 sec
(7.2 Wh)(3600 J/Wh)/(10 sec) = 2592
J/s  2.6 kW
• Takes 138.9 turns for 1 kWh
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Reading those tricky dials

• Let’s say you want to read a utility electricity meter…
• Be careful to note the direction of the numbers (usually
flips back and forth)
• Round down is the safe bet
• Note the third dial below looks like 5, but it’s really 4.9
(next digit is a nine)
– so looking at next dial helps you figure out rounding
– note second dial halfway between 0 and 1: next digit ~5
• This meter reads 5049.9
– the 9.9 reads between the lines in the last dial

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Clicker question
• What does this meter read?
A. 11198.8
B. 11088.8
C. 11199
D. 11188.8
E. 22199

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Measuring the wheel rate

• Recall that the Kh constant is Watt-hours per turn of the disk
– so power is Kh3600disk rate
– units are: (Watt-hour)(sec/hour)(turns/sec)
• On top of the rotating disk are tick marks with labels every 10
units.
– 100 units around disk
• If disk is moving slowly, can measure half a rotation*
– example: from 30 to 80 or 70 to 20
• If disk is moving fast, can measure time for 5 or 10 rotations
• The the turns/sec could be, for example:
– 0.5 turns / 132.0 sec  98 W for Kh = 7.2
– 10 turns / 44.0 sec  5890 W for Kh = 7.2
– 0.2 turns / 35.0 sec  148 W for Kh = 7.2

Spring 2013 * careful here: disk rate can be highly non-uniform; best to measure full rotation 6
UCSD Physics 12

Digital Meters
• Digital meters more pervasive
lately
• Cycles through several displays
– one is “odometer” reading in kWh
– no tricky dials
• “Disk” is simulated by blocks
that appear/disappear
– each change constitutes 1.0 Wh
for my meter “disk” blocks
– my meter has six “disk” states
0
– so full cycle is 6 Wh 1
2
3
4
5

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Example day electricity profile

• Run microwave (1000 W) for 12 minutes total (0.2 hr)
– 0.2 kWh
• Clothes washer (300 W) for 1 hour
– 0.3 kWh
• Clothes dryer (5000 W) for 1 hour
– 5 kWh
• Movie on TV/DVD (200 W) for 2 hours
– 0.4 kWh
• Desktop computer (100 W) on all day
– 2.4 kWh
• Refrigerator (average 75 W) on all day
– 1.8 kWh
• Lights (total 400 W) for 5 hours
– 2 kWh
• Total comes to 12.1 kWh: not too different from average usage
– costs about $1.50 at $0.13 per kWh

Spring 2013 Q 8
UCSD Physics 12

Natural Gas Meter

• Dials work just like electricity meter

– same round-down method
• Lowest dial usually indicates 1000 cf per full revolution
– cf means cubic foot, or ft3
• Thus each tick is one hundred cf (hcf)
– therefore numerical reading in hcf
• 100 ft3 delivers 1.02 Therms of energy
– 1 Therm is 100,000 Btu = 105,500,000 J = 29.3 kWh
– my gas bill indicates about $1 per Therm
– equivalent to $0.034 per kWh: cheaper than electricity
• My meter also has a 0.5 cf dial and a 2 cf dial
– which I have used to monitor slow usage
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Water meter
• Though not a measure of energy,
this can be important because one
thing we do with water is heat it
• Meters typically measure in cubic
feet
– 1 ft3 = 7.48 gallons
– 1 gallon is 8.33 lb, so 1 ft3 = 62.3 lb
– recall that heating 1 lb H2O 1F takes
1 Btu = 1055 J
• The meter at right reads 82.114 ft3
– the ones digit usually snaps into place
quickly so it’s not halfway between
numbers for very long
– the little triangle spins if water is
flowing

Spring 2013 Q 10
UCSD Physics 12

And finally, gasoline

• Gasoline energy content is:
– 34.8 MJ/liter
– 47 MJ/kg
– 125,000 Btu/gallon = 132 MJ/gallon = 36.6 kWh/gallon
• At $4.00 per gallon, this is $0.11 per kWh
– slightly cheaper than electricity, more expensive than
natural gas

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Energy Profile
• Looking at my bills April 2006–March 2007, I
saw that my household (2 people) used:
– 3730 kWh of electricity in a year  10.3 kWh/day
– 330 Therms of natural gas in a year  0.9 Therms/day
= 26 kWh/day
– 10 gallons of gasoline every 2 weeks  26 kWh/day
• Total is 62 kWh/day = 2580 W
– or 1300 W per person
– 13% of 10,000 W American average
– says most activity in commercial sector, not at home

Spring 2013 12
UCSD Physics 12

Something doesn’t add up…

• Something wasn’t making sense
• 0.5 Therms/day = 50,000 Btu/day during summer months
when the only natural gas we used was for hot water
• A typical 10-minute shower at 2 gallons per minute means
20 gallons or 166 lbs of water
• To heat 166 lbs water from 60 F to 120 F (60 F change)
requires 16660 = 10,000 Btu
• Averaging 1 shower/day, we should be using 5 times less
natural gas, or about 0.1 Therms/day
• Where is the 0.5 Therms coming from?!

Spring 2013 Q 13
UCSD Physics 12

Watching the dials

• I started watching the 2 cf/turn dial on my gas
meter
– no gas was being used (no furnace, no hot water)
– it was making about 0.72 turns per hour, so 1.44 cf/hr
– steady rate, hour after hour
– that’s 34.6 cf/day, or 0.346 hcf/day = 0.35 Therms/day
– this is close to the missing amount!
• Where was that gas going?

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The Fix
• Shutting off gas to the furnace resulted in a much slower
dial progression
– rate was about 0.11 Therms/day
– this part must be the water heater pilot
– the rest (0.24 Therms/day) was the furnace pilot
• this means the (useless) furnace pilot matched the (useful) hot water
heater gas consumption!
• also, half the hot water heater gas (0.11 Therms/day) is the pilot
• The resultant cost for both pilots was
– (0.35 Therms/day)(30.6 days/month)($1.30/Therm)
– $14 per month
– save almost $10/month by turning off furnace pilot

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But I’m not done measuring yet!

• How much does a shower take?
– 10 minute shower: measured 2.75 ft3 = 20.57 gallons
via meter
– gas kicked on and used 15.3 ft3 = 0.156 Therms before
it stopped
• at rate of 0.5 cf/minute
• 0.005 Therms/minute = 500 Btu/minute = 30,000 Btu/hr =
8800 W
• water heater says 34,000 BTUH on side
– Used 15,600 Btu for shower
• 20.57 gallons = 171 lbs
• heating by 60 F requires 10,280 Btu at 100% efficiency
• so must be about 10280/15600 = 65% efficient
• actually less since shower used 20.57 gallons, but not all hot

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Average Americans
• 830 kWh electricity per month per household
– about 300 kWh per person per month (10 kWh/day)
• 61012 ft3 of natural gas use in residences per day
– 480 kWh gas equivalent per month per person (16 kWh/day)
• 0.5 gallons gasoline per day per person
– 560 kWh per month equivalent (18 kWh/day)
• Total power is 1340 kWh/month (44 kWh/day) = 1820 W
– this is 18% of the average American’s total of 10,000 W
– so again, most is outside the home (out of sight, out of mind)

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How much better can we do?

• Starting in 2007, my wife and I challenged ourselves to
reduce our energy footprint
– never turned furnace/pilot back on
• low power electric blanket helps!
– shorter showers, with cutoff for soaping up
– line-dry clothes
– all bulbs compact fluorescent, some LED
– diligent about turning off unused lights
– bike/walk around neighborhood (and bus to work)
– install experimental (small) solar photovoltaic system (off-grid;
battery-based) to run TV & living room
• since expanded to 1kW peak system; fridge, TV, modem/wireless

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UCSD Physics 12
Tracking home usage of electricity and natural gas since 2006

dashed line: started seriously cutting back

pilot light

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trend-line for previous year total: keeps trucking down!

Spring 2013 20
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Update: Livin’ the Low Life in S.D.

Spring 2013 21
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Update: Gas Use History

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Big Reductions
• Most substantial savings was gas (no furnace)
– Immediately went from 0.84 Therms/day to 0.28 Therms/day
• equivalent to 25 kWh/day, now down to 8 kWh/day
• now at ~5 kWh/day
• now using a fifth of what we used to!
• Line-drying clothes had largest electricity impact
– some space-heater activity to compensate for no heat
– Immediately went from 10.5 kWh/day to 5.5 kWh/day
• now at <3 kWh/day
• now using a fourth of what we used to
• but this requires about three times the energy in natural gas due to the
inefficiency of generation, plus some transmission loss, so the real
post-reduction usage is more than twice that of natural gas

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UCSD Physics 12

Carbon Footprints
• Each gallon of gasoline contributes 20 lb CO2
• Each kWh of electricity from natural gas plant (at 33% net
efficiency) contributes 1.2 lbs CO2
• Each Therm of natural gas contributes 11.7 lbs CO2
• So my annual household CO2 footprint (2 people):
– 4600 lbs + 3600 lbs from elec. plus N.G. before April 2007
– 2400 lbs + 1200 lbs from elec. plus N.G. just after April 2007
– 7130 lbs per year from gasoline (@ 10,000 miles per year)
– 15,000 lbs from air travel (at 0.48 lbs/passenger-mile)
• See: http://www.earthlab.com/carbon-calculator.html
– also Google: carbon footprint calculator

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UCSD Physics 12

Lessons
• It is illuminating to assess your energy footprint
– how much do you get from which sources?
– how much would you have to replace without fossil
fuels?
– how can you cut down your own usage?
• Again we see that the bulk of energy expenditures
are not at home or in our cars
– but in the industry, agriculture, transportation,
commercial sectors.

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UCSD Physics 12

Announcements and Assignments

• Lots of Do the Math posts on this topic
– see Guide to Posts from menu bar; list at bottom of page
• 38. Pilot Lights are Evil
• 39. Home Heating for the Hardy
• 41. The Phantoms I’ve Killed
• 46. My Neighbors Use Too Much Energy
• 53. TED-Stravaganza
• Read Chapter 4 for next lecture
• HW #4 due Friday 5/03
– HW drop box outside my office (SERF 336) for early
turn-in
• Quiz 3 due by midnight tonight
Spring 2013 26